


being dead aint easy (SBURB REMIX)

by Introsquirrel



Category: Homestuck, MSPA Forums
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Ghosts, Humor, M/M, Spirits, Suicidal Thoughts, davekat long fic contest entry, lots of cool things, this will actually be pretty funny, what do i even tag here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-04 13:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Introsquirrel/pseuds/Introsquirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disaster strikes and Dave Strider is gone for good. Or is he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dont know if ill make it...

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Being Dead Ain't Easy](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/8223) by D. Draggy. 



> I have this tendency to babble on about everything forever, so I'll just say this:  
> This is an entry to the S.S. Davekat contest  
> This is inspired by a fic I read when I was in middle school and has stuck with me for a while. But I will be adding my own flavor to it. The quote given to us as a prompt just sort of hit me in the face with nostalgia and I knew I had to write this thing. So here we go!

_“I live near the_   
_slaughterhouse_   
_and am ill_   
_with thriving.”_

\- Bukowski

\-------------------

 

“So Troll Thomas Anderson got himself killed last night,” John told you, hanging up his coat. “Shot right between the eyes, right here, and stabbed fourteen times post-mortem.”  He emphasized this with stabby motions. “Guess he didn’t follow the white rabbit.”

You didn’t know who Troll Thomas Anderson was or why he would be following Bugs Bunny, so you said, “What?”

“Troll Thomas Anderson! Hacker name Neo?” You simply raised your eyebrows over your glasses. John looked exasperated. “The _Matrix_ , dude, come on.”

You offered a shoulder to your best bro as he toed off his shoes in the midst of his disappointment. “I thought Troll Keanu Reeves was immortal or some shit. Or is that just human Keanu Reeves?”

John looked up at you blankly. “What?”

“He means the asshole who works three cubicles down from him,” Sollux clarified for you, reaching over John to hang up his own coat. “Guy was a reclusive bag of dicks, told us how he could hack into any mainframe.” He rolled his monochrome eyes.

“Hence Troll Thomas Anderson,” John said. “He was the least cool hacker we could think of.”

“What about the real Napster from _The Italian Job_?”

“No way, that guy was bombing. Don’t even kid, Dave.”

“He tried hacking into the company mainframe once,” Sollux continued. “I hit him with one of KK’s viruses. Never tried _that_ again.”

John waved his hands in glee and added, “He managed to blow up the entire coding department! We got paid vacation for a _week_!”

Sollux grinned and exchanged some sort of secret encrypted look with Egbert. “Not him though.”

“No way, not ever. He talked about quitting a lot after that. Said he was going to make a name for himself.” John shrugged. “Guess he got too cocky.”

“The FBI came and talked to us today.”

“So that means it was totally gang related!”

“Stabbed fourteen times sounds like Crew work so-“

“- it just _reeks_ of Slick, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but it could be a copy-cat.”

“Not really? Who would be dumb enough to frame the Crew for-“

You waved your hand to get their attention. “I’ll leave you two ladies to your gossip. Any time you want to join the party, we’ll all be somewhere that isn’t the entry hall.”

John stuck out his tongue at you, but laughed. “Lead the way, loser.”

Your name was Dave Strider and you were not a loser. You had definitive proof of this; it was Friday night and you were at a party. There was alcohol involved. Shitty pop music was playing. It wasn’t a frat party, no, but you still had a chance of getting laid because there were, in fact, single ladies at this party. This was definitely how you spent most of your Friday nights nowadays. You did not spend them holed up in your cheap apartment eating Cheetos and drinking off-brand apple juice while plotting out story arcs for a shitty webcomic that had gained far too large a fandom for its quality. Nope, you were a party animal, a free soul, douchebag personified, frat boy wannabe.

Okay, maybe you were a little bit of a loser, but John was a bigger loser than you and that was all that counted. You had thousands of screaming fans on Tumblr and he was a code monkey. Sure, you were a bit reclusive, but you never turned down an invitation, provided you didn’t have a deadline to meet. And sometimes even then. The fans could deal.

Things were pretty good, you thought. You had a relatively stable income and a pretty kick-ass job that you actually enjoyed doing. You were pretty sure everything your friends said about you behind your back was also everything John said to your face. As far as being a loser, you were simply the best there was.

The party was officially for some sort advancement for the campaign of Feferi, Heiress to the Throne and political activist, but really it was just an excuse to get everyone together for some much-needed social time. It was talking place in Eridan’s hive, which was a tacky and monstrous thing that looked like a pirate ship, was designed like a mansion, cost as much as a castle, and smelled like a bait shop. The place could comfortably accommodate the size of the guest load, but you still had to squeeze through a few groups to get to the people you actually wanted to talk to.

As soon as your mutual friends were in sight, the host included, Sollux called out, “Hey asshole, why don’t you have a doorman to take our coats? Pretty substandard for a fishy asshole like you.”

Eridan jerked his head up indignantly. “What are you talkin’ aboat? I do.”

“The only person over there was Strider.”

“I was talking a smoke break,” you explained with a shrug.

Rose frowned at you. “You don’t smoke.”

“I could, you don’t know that.”

“But you don’t.”

“I do what I want. You ain’t my real mom.”

“I’ll go see what the problem is,” Eridan said and slipped away.

Feferi ran over to Sollux with a stumbling laugh and threw her arms around his shoulders as she grinned terrifyingly at you and John. “You fish made it!”

“Yeah,” you said, “sorry they were so late, Egbert got his gills caught I his neck tie and spent the at least thrity minutes trying to figure out the Gordian knot around his neck. You know how it is.”

“We had work drama,” John said, elbowing you in the side. He laughed though, and Feferi laughed with him and it was at that point you realized that she was completely drunk.

“Sol,” Feferi said into Sollux’s neck. “Sol-fish, Karcrabby is being so… crabby!”

You looked over by the window and sure enough was Karkat Vantas wearing his usual ridiculous ensemble that was meant to cover up as much skin as possible. Boots, pants, mock turtleneck (for the warmer seasons), collared jacket, gloves, tinted glasses (which could also change to sunglasses and goggles), and cabbie hat. You weren’t very close to him and you didn’t interact with him much, but you heard enough about him from everyone else. He was bad tempered, an self-proclaimed expert in romance, and drove a taxi for a living. Hemoanonymous. Well, Sollux claimed he knew his blood color, and Equius had told you once that lowbloods tended to be able to tolerate warmer temperatures. Considering you had never seen Vantas in anything less than a long-sleeve turtleneck, even in the summer, you and Equius both agreed that he was probably low, whatever he was.

Your interaction with him mostly took place in a group of people and rarely did you ever directly talk. It was really a shame, because he had a pretty nice ass for spending a lot of time sitting on it, and he seemed like a pretty good opponent in a fight. But between his personality and his conservative taste in clothes, you didn’t really think anything you started with him would go very far anyway.

“KK,” Sollux said to Vantas, “stop being so crabby.”

“I’ll stop being so crabby once Feferi stops making a complete lush of herself in public. Does she realize that there are three senators that this party? At least? I just counted them, there, one, two, three, all in earshot of us! Wow, what a great impression to make in front of people you want to-“

Feferi detached herself from Sollux’s neck and instead threw herself at Vantas, locking him in the most malicious hug you had ever seen.

“No,” he said, trying to push her off. “No, I will not hug you. This is pale sentiment, you are cheating on your quadrants you venomous political witch, get off me.”

She laughed and said, “Nope! This is a party, not a meeting. You need to settle down.”

“I will not settle down, this is the most-“

“Settle down,” Feferi growled in the same voice she used to threaten any would-be assassins. It showed all of her teeth and creeped the fuck out of everyone.

Karkat settled down and, very reluctantly, hugged her back.

Feferi looked satisfied with this and pet his hair a little while he growled warningly.

The rest of the party wasn’t quite as eventful. You spent a long time talking with Equius and Nepeta about whatever came to mind. You liked them. Equius was a bit weird with his sweating and classism, but he was harmless and calmed right down when Nepeta patted his face. Rose tried to get you to tell her about your dreams, and Jade recruited you to get John to stop pulling pranks on all the officials. You found out the mayor of the city actually read your comic and you doodled him a picture on a napkin for him to take home.

The party started thinning out pretty early, but everyone who mattered stayed a bit longer. It was 4 AM before Eridan said he and Fef had some things to do tomorrow, so he was kicking you out of his house/boat/mansion/bait shop.

You were stuffing your feet into your sneakers when Kanaya said, “Oh dear, Karkat forgot his hat.” She looked out the window and pursed her lips, so you whistled to get her attention.

“Toss it over,” you said, holding out your hand. “I got this.” She smiled and tossed it over to you. You snatched it mid-air and threw open the door with a “bam” and behind you, Eridan complained about you damaging her property. Vantas was fumbling with his keys by his car.

“Yo, asshole,” you said, and his head jerked up to glare at you. You flashstepped over to him, already preparing to comment on how he looked up at the rude nickname instantaneously, but before you could even open your mouth, something popped behind you hit your back.

The pain feels like someone just pushed you really hard with a relatively sharp stick and you fall against Karkat, pinning him to his car. He lets out the beginnings of a protest before something cuts him off.

Your world gets a little fuzzy and surreal. You try to push off of him, but it’s not working too well. You brace your hands on the roof of the sedan and look at Vantas, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. He’s staring at you, wide eyes. Gently, so very gently, he touches your chest.

His hand comes back covered in blood.

“Well, damn,” you say, and then cough up metal-tasting liquid.

Another pop behind you and you push Karkat down as fast as you can. A hole appears in the car where his shoulder was. Another pop, something hits your shoulder and it’s all you can do to keep from collapsing on the ground.

“Holy fuck,” someone says.

“Oh my god, what the hell just-“

“Karkat? Dave?”

“Dave!”

“Holy shit, who-“

“-call an ambulance now-“

“-find out who-“

“-look for the ass-“

“-god oh god oh god oh god-“

“-came from the east, shots-“

You’re looking down at Vantas, all scrunched up below you.  His glasses are askew, his eyes are wide and terrified and they don’t leave yours. He looks a little like a frightened stray, like that, you think. A stray cat. Like that stupid joke John is always saying. Haha.

“Beep beep meow,” you try to say, but you just end up coughing instead. Some blood falls on Vantas’s face and he seems to shudder to life. All around you are people yelling and screaming, but his voice is loud and clear and-

“Towels.”

-not what you expected hearing, what the fuck.

He unzips his coat in one fluid motion, the kind of motion you only saw in cheesy action movies. “I need towels now, or coats, or whatever the fuck you assholes have _right here_. Right _now_.”

You realize he’s not talking to you. He stands up, carefully, and you’re about to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing, there’s someone fucking shooting _shooting_ and oh god you’ve been shot in the chest what the fuck this is not happening this is not

“Shhh,” Vantas says. Someone hands him something. The towels. “Hold this,” he tells someone else and suddenly you are looking at the sky, with an uncomfortable lump under your back and Vantas is _straddling_ you, the fucker, with his coat wrapped around your chest and then he fucking _pulls_ and you see stars.

When you head clears, you have tunnel vision and Jade is cradling your head. “Hey Dave,” she says and she’s crying. “We’re right here, so it’s okay.” Your head is swimming and you nauseous. You’re pretty sure you’re the exact opposite of okay.

Vantas is now leaning over your chest and pressing down on it. “I’m trying to slow down the bleeding,” he’s hissing, you don’t know who to. “He’s probably in shock.” He’s covering in red. Something distant in your mind remarks that he’s covered in your blood. Another part observes the red tinted tracks on his face as he presses his hands down on you.

“Breathe, you asshole,” He says.

“Dave,” Jade whispers to you. “Dave, you gotta stay with us, okay? We’re getting you help. You gotta hold oh, okay? Just a little bit longer. Dave, stay with us, okay?” She repeats it like a prayer.

Breathing is the least of your concerns. You’re more worried about how cold you feel, or the pins and needles feeling that’s creeping its way up your arms and legs. You’re worried about the fact that all you can taste and smell is copper.

Everyone’s words start slurring and becoming nonsense, and your ears start ringing. Next to Vantas, a girl kneels down. A troll. Her eyes were large and white, her face passive. The most passive person in the area.

Gently, intentionally, she puts her hand on Vantas’s arm and he jerks his head up to look at her. Slowly, she shakes her head.

“No,” you see him say. “No, no, no, no, no!”

She looks at you and she opens her mouth.

“Bear no burden,” she says, her voice crisp and clear and hallow, resounding in your head. “Seek no resolution.”

“Listen, listen to me,” Vantas adds.  He’s leaning over you and inches from your face. ‘Back the fuck up,’ you want to say, but all that comes out of your mouth is blood. “Strider, if you can still hear me, you have to listen. For the love of god _keep walking_.”

What the _fuck_ was _that_ supp


	2. ... but watch how good ill fake it

You have no idea where you are, but it was dark and cold and you didn’t really like it too much. You are actively disliking it, in fact. Your shoes stick to the ground like they have suction cups glued to the bottom of them and you keep tripping over shit that you can’t see because everything is _really fucking dark_.

 

And the area right between your shoulder blades that’s impossible to reach? Yeah, that itches like hell. Perfect. Your life is perfect in every goddamn way, the only way it could get better was if the moon exploded. Chunks of meteor and rock raining down from the sky while entire countries flooded, mass panic and chaos, a lot of things on fire. Sounded like the good life. What did you have to worry about? Everyone was dead. Yee haw!

 

Your brain feels itchy too, like you’re trying to hold on to a dream. The more you think about it, the less you remember it. Oh well, must not be that important. You continue wading through whatever the fuck it is that is covering the ground, which is a far more pressing problem than itchy brains.

 

“Hey,” you yell into the nothingness that is all around you. “Hey, tech crew. Let’s get some light on stage here, the actors are going to fall off the edge pretty soon and then where will we be. Opening night is tomorrow, what the fuck are you even thinking?”

 

Amazingly enough, a light did turn on. A blinding spotlight that did nothing to help your visibility. “Holy shit, how is this better,” you hiss. You trudge toward it anyway. It’s a destination at least – more importantly, it feels warm. The light is technicolor, like it has a thin rainbow sheen covering it. Things are moving around inside of it; you think of eye floaters and optical illusions. That first step toward it feels like you are stuck in mud up to your knees, like your shoes are going to be sucked down into the depths of swamp mold, never to be seen again. The second step is moderately easier, and then the next. “Fuckers are making me work for it,” you mutter. You feel like you’re forgetting something really important.

 

You trip, landing face down in the slime you’ve been making your way through for who knows how long. Your instincts are screaming at you to get up, but the fed up part of your brain goes, “Welp, that shouldn’t be a surprise at all.” You are tired, cold, itchy, and covered in an unknown substance that may or may not be moving on its own. You are pretty sure you were having a shitty day, but you can’t really be sure. Stop the world, you want to get off.

 

“I give,” you tell the slime. “The light’ll just have to wait.”

 

When you push yourself back up, the light is gone.

 

“Well, shit,” you say, standing up and wiping off your chest. The sludge has the consistency of sopor, it feels like. It comes off easy. “Whatever losers, no one wanted to join your illumination club anyway. I’ll go find my own rainbow light bulbs.” Not your best comeback. You turn around and-

 

Huh.

 

That is a cloud.

 

Had that been there before? You look back in the direction of the light and – nope. There’s a cloud there too. Everything’s reasonably bright too, so you look down to see what the hell you’d been walking through.

 

Aaaaaand that was Midnight City. You are floating above Midnight City.

 

You are _floating_ above Midnight City what the _how did you get there_ what is even going on-

 

“What the _shit_ ,” you yell, flailing your arms like a dumbass. “Holy fucking Jesus shit ass motherfucking son of a bitch-“ If you are expecting your arms to connect with something to hold on to, you are sorely disappointed.

 

Abruptly, your brain stops being itchy and starts imploding. And you remember. You regret everything immediately.

 

The party, Karkat staring up at you with wide eyes, the explosion of pain in your back, Jade, towels, screaming, blood blood blood

_Bare no burden, seek no resolution._

_Keep walking. Keep walking_ _, keep walkingkeepwalkingkeepwalkingkeepwalk-_

 

You fall.

***

Somewhere between the floating and the falling, you find that through concentration and a lot of loud cursing that was certainly not screaming like a small child that you can kind of sort of not really control the speed of your descent.

You land in a cemetery. Appropriate. Maybe even ironic. Well, whatever. You would have ended up there anyway if you hadn’t suddenly produced the ability to fall slower than nature intended anyway.

 

It looks like a funeral is going on nearby and – whoa, hey, that is a group of people you knew. You meander over as quietly as you could. Didn’t want to disrupt the ceremony, everyone looked pretty upset. John was even crying, what the shit. _Rose_ was crying. _In public_. Jesus, you thought, who the hell died and why didn’t anyone tell me?

 

( _Dave, you gotta stay with us, okay? We’re getting you help. You gotta hold on, okay? Just a little bit longer_.)

 

Lingering in the back of the crowd seems like the least intrusive way to nose around and sleuth on what’s up, but there’s a surprising amount of people in front of you. That and the ceremony seems to be pretty much over anyway. People start turning around and walking away, looking grim and miserable. Well, someone just died, duh, holy fuck of course they’re going to be miserable. You move to the side to get out of everyone’s way. No one comments on your presence and you don’t try to get anyone attention. You lean against a tree and shove your hands in your pockets.

 

You’re still a little cold. Not a whole lot, but enough to make you moderately uncomfortable. You step a little more behind the tree and watch everyone leave. John takes both Jade and Rose by the arms and gently leads them away, all of them look pale and exhausted and heart-wrenchingly _broken_. Jade hiccups, John pulls her a little closer. The grave diggers start throwing dirt on to the casket in the giant hole in the ground.

 

A few people linger, and among them is – well, shit. Vantas was there, standing next to a familiar looking young troll. He’s glancing around discreetly, says something that you can’t hear. The troll shakes her head slowly and he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and –

 

Turns to leave. You abruptly get a really bad feeling about that rainbow light thing.

 

You wait until everyone but the gravediggers are gone until you approach the tombstone. Your feel nauseous, tense, like someone is reaching into your stomach and spinning your intestines around.

 

You stare at the stone.

 

_Dave Strider_

_December 3rd, 1995 – June 19th, 2021_

_Brother and Friend_

_We’re going to miss you little man._

It’s all in Comic Sans, even has a little caricature of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff at the bottom. Your throat goes a little tight. Jesus, shit.

 

“Hey,” you say to the diggers. They ignore you. “Hey,” you say again, a little louder. No response. “Seriously, assholes, I’m talking to you right now, at least grunt or some shit.” Nothing. You grab one of their arms and try to pull him back. Your hand goes right

 

through

 

his.

 

“Haha,” you say, voice a little high. “Haha, good one guys. Really awesome, let’s keep up with joke, it’s super fucking funny. Nice magic trick you did there. What was that, an optical illusion? Real clever, you really had me going. Like, what the shit, felt like I was actually a ghost for a bit, really fucking original. You planning on being a magician now, Egbert? Good for you, follow your dream and all that. You’re the star, it’s you. Getting really motherfucking good at this, shit, didn’t even realize you were practicing. But, okay, joke’s running a little long here and the horse is pretty much a twitch corpse at this point so let’s just… just. Guys. Guys, come on.”

 

No one pops out from behind a tree and yells, “Psych!” No one suddenly laughs and tells you what a huge loser you are for falling for this lame-ass trick. No one even smirks and winks at all you sly-like, like you’re sharing a private joke.

 

( _Bare no burden, seek no resolution_.)

 

“Keep walking,” you say to yourself. You didn’t get back up.

 

 _You didn’t get back up_.

 

Everyone is gone and you’re standing in front of your own grave, alone.

 

You look around a little desperately. “Guys?”

 

No one answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So hi! Sorry this went on a really unexpectedly long hiatus. I basically had to choose between writing and passing my courses last semester and I REALLY REALLY like to not fail. But! This semester is looking significantly better and I now have a lot more time to write! Expect semi-regular updates! 
> 
> Also, I will NOT abandon this fic, I am kind of emotionally attached to it.
> 
> This is not edited, so feel free to point out mistakes or anything that confuses you.


	3. movies have been lying to me all these years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the perks to being a ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey again, double chapter update WHOO! This came out WAY more angsty than I intended but it will get funny again I swear

Within the first twenty-three hours of your new ectoplasmic state of ethereal matter, you come to the conclusion that you are, in fact, very much dead. So dead, in fact, that you spend twenty-three hours in shock and not freeze to… double death? Is that a thing? That can’t be a thing. Who the fuck would come up with double-death anyway? Certainly not you.

You also spend a lot of time trying not to hyperventilate. But you can’t actually feel air going into your lungs so you can’t really tell most of the time and holy shit you’re not breathing because you are so fucking dead, like, literally oh god oh god-

Okay, you think, let’s look at this logically. “I fell from heaven,” you say to a passerby, who ignores you. “If I fell then all I need to do is go back up and then walk into the light at the end of the rabbit hole. Yeah, shit, this’ll be a motherfucking cake walk. A cake walk with a shit load of confectionary batter witch bribes and I’m the poor Sunday school volunteer handing out diabetes-inducing products like I’m about to take over the world. Because I’m an evil genius super villain or something. Fuck it, I’m the batter witch. Get the hell out of the way, Egbert; I’m your worst nightmare.”

You have left the cemetery and are now in a lesser part of Downtown, where traffic isn’t as clogged up and the people are scarcer. For the most part, you’ve been dodging the public and pedestrians because you really don’t want to know what happens when someone walks into you. Unfortunately, you aren’t paying too close of attention and someone walks right the fuck through you and it feels like your entire body is a funny bone and the asshole (who’s still walking, seriously, like he didn’t just get cold or anything) is the table you bashed your elbow into. “Sonuvabitch,” you yell and backtrack to a wall, which you helpfully fall through. You lie on the ground, halfway through a wall, feeling like you’re about to vibrate apart, staring up at the florescent lights of a men’s bathroom. “That’s all folks,” you say, and your voice doesn’t even echo. It stays flat and dull, like you’re perpetually in a tool shed full of rugs. “God.”

That… is not an experience you want to repeat. “Right,” you tell the sink next to you. Someone really needs to examine that mold there. “Right, afterlife lesson number one, avoid touching people. No clubbing for this poltergeist, no perverted invisible man antics or demons possessions for me. Probably shouldn’t try to hug people, that looks to be right out.” At least you weren’t really a touchy-feely person in your life. “No cuddle puddles,” you add, and feel a little upset about it despite yourself.

You get up and pull yourself all the way into the bathroom, shaking off some nonexistent dust. There’s really no sense in hanging around a men’s restroom (at all, ever, in any universe or state of being) so you head toward the wall to waltz back on to the street and

bash your nose walking into a solid surface. You spend the next minute or so leaning against a sink and doing a lot of cursing. You can’t feel wind or surfaces but you can feel pain, of course, that makes total sense. Shit taking motherfucking bitchtits cum guzzling fuck monkey- You punch the wall and your hand passes right through it, and you hop three steps on one foot and then promptly fall on your face.  
You tell the ground, “Welp. Don’t even need to elaborate, I’m pretty sure this explains itself.” You have been stabbed right in the dignity, boom, head shot. Haha, it’s funny because that’s how you died-  
Figuring out what the fuck happened seems like a better plan than freaking out, so you push yourself up and examine the wall. You put your hand on it and push. Yup, that’s definitely a wall, doing what a wall is supposed to be doing. Okay, so you fell through it not really paying attention twice, but how can you concentrate on not paying attention to a wall you are giving your full focus on? You concentrate like crazy and push against the wall again and – your hand goes through.

“Okay,” you say, trying it out a few more times. Hand goes through, hand doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t, motherfucking doesn’t, does, does, doesn’t, does, doesn’t, does, does, does, does, doesn’t –

There is no pattern to it. You give up and accept the fact that you may or may not be able to walk through walls, depending on how the wall is feeling at a given moment. Lame. You bet that Casper never has these sorts of problems.

… Movies always show that ghosts have superpowers, right? Like, you die and suddenly you are a military grade psionic. So you can move stuff and blow shit up and rattle chains and shit, right? Aw shit, that would be so kick-ass. Fuck yes, afterlife. Time to test out your new powers.

You start out by trying to move a can across the street, like in that movie about the guy who died and met an insane ghost hobo. Your experiment is an overwhelming failure. You try flying, but your top speed is approximately .002 miles per hour (walking is faster). You try flapping your arms and flying. Not only is it a failure, but you also feel really stupid for trying it. You can’t gain anyone’s attention by jumping around corners and yelling, “boo,” or “I am the ghost of twelfth perigee’s past.” You cannot set anything on fire at will, or fling papers into the air in an intimidating manner. The most useful thing you can do is bounce off cars like a volley ball and not die in the process.

Your conclusion: being a ghost sucks balls. Big hairy unwashed balls.

 

 

 

***

John plays piano.

John was playing piano when you arrived at his house three days ago, and he’s still at it right now. You went to go see him first because he’s your best friend and you thought he would be the least depressing to hang around with. Jade would just interchange between crying and living her life, and you did not under any circumstances want to see how Rose was dealing with your death, so you went to John.

You should have went to the girls because you are seriously contemplating finding a priest and getting yourself exorcised.

He plays piano.

He plays piano a lot.

No tears, no screaming, no sniffles or whimpering into his pillow at night. All that you think you could handle. No, John just plays and plays and plays and if he’s not playing, he’s sitting very quietly and staring at nothing. The guy is barely even sleeping. If you’re being honest with yourself, you are much more worried about this reaction than you are about sobbing breakdowns. John by definition is energetic and snarky and should have come up with at least three inappropriate jokes about your death by now. You weren’t expecting to be unaffected but Jesus Fucking Christ, this is just terrible in every way possible.

On day three, Jade bursts into the house, giant white dog and grim psychoanalyst in tow. Her eyes are slightly red and her hair is a mess. Rose looks as put together as she always does, but there’s a slouch to her posture that betrays her emotional state. They are both carrying a pile’s worth of blankets and pillows, which they deposit by the door.

Ugh. You are not looking forward to this. But you sit on the couch anyway and watch.

“John,” Jade yells and then stomps right up to your best bro. He doesn’t really react much, he just kind of looks at her. “John, stop being an apathetic zombie douche and get the fuck up!”

Rose opens one of John’s closets and takes out a giant load of afghans. “This is an intervention. We are going to make a pillow fort,” she says. “You are going to participate.”

“And then,” Jade says, pulling John to his feet. “We’re going to all sit in the pillow fort and sob like stupid kids and cuddle like it’s the end of the world.” She pauses dramatically. “Because it’s the end of our world.”

“Okay,” John mutters, and you want to scream.

Jade punches him in the arm. “More enthusiasm!”

He rubs his face and sighs. “Guys, this really isn’t a good time for-“

Rose shoves the afghans into his arms. “It’s the perfect time. It’s the perfect time because none of us are taking this with any sort of dignity. As the cliché saying goes, misery loves company. We are all going to be miserable together.”

“And when we say together,” Jade adds, “that means with you.”

“Yes, you’re a vital part of our mourning operation. Without you, the entire thing would fall apart.”

“And that would suck!”

“Indeed. The amount of suckage would be apocalyptic.”

“If you want to borrow blankets,” he says, “you just have to ask.”

Jade grabs one of his ears and pulls. “You’re missing the point, mister. You are helping us build a blanket fort. You are going to cuddle with us in the blanket for that you helped us make.”

“And then,” Rose says, taking cushions off the couch (which you quickly abandon), “you are going to cry like a little girl while Jade and I coo at you like mother hens.” She stares John down. “This is not a request.”

John just kind of blinks at them. “What day is it?”

And then, together, the girls say, “It’s Tuesday, you fat nasty trash.”

He chokes. You choke. Jade takes his shoulders and spins him around, giving him a push to the other side of the room. “Now go start over there. Rose will start over here, and I’ll go get some heavy stuff!”

You could kiss the girls right now, as you watch John dazedly stumble around the room, throwing large amounts of fabric over all stable surfaces. Rose works with an expression of such grim determination, she could be picking through the charred remains of a building for the amount of seriousness she throws into the task. And Jade charges right into the task while throwing her pillow around like beanbags, Bec bounding after her like a fluffy white shadow. He licks hands and noses the back of people’s knees and general gets in the way of everyone.

When John seemingly runs out of blankets to use, Rose sits him down on a pillow pile, and Jade commands Bec to sit on his lap. Then she commands John to scratch Bec behind the ears.

They make a really goddamn huge blanket fort. You are sort of jealous because no one made a blanket fort this big while you were alive. Well, drastic times call for drastic recreates of nostalgic childhood memories. You sit in the blanket fort with them and pretend that you’re still part of the group.  
The girls sit on either side of John and they all clasp hands tightly with their heads together and a box of tissues each.

Rose says, “I’m kicking myself in the back because we forgot to make his funeral a piece of shit.” You snort and let out a bark of a laugh.

“We should have set it up like a wedding,” Jade adds. “Or like a Christmas service.”

“We should have hired someone to dress up like Death and stand quietly in the back of the service.”

“Played Ke$ha at the reception afterward and only served really terrible hors d'oeuvres that no one would eat.”

“Valentine’s Day roses everywhere.”

“A graduation cake.”

“A baby shower banner,” John manages, finally. “One that says, ‘It’s a girl!’” Then he lets out a little hysterical giggle. “Everyone could have worn party hats and had those New Year’s noise makers and we could all sing ‘Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead’ and not actually tell the priest. Have a complete stranger from the street come in and make up shit about him.”

You think that this is all hilarious and are a little disappointed that your funeral was apparently not this cool.

“And,” John continues, he seems to be on a role, “no one wears black, and we all wear shades all the time like douchebags for the next week and take pictures of our shoes and send them to each other over Instagram.” Then he chokes again and says, “Guys. Guys.” His hands visibly tighten around the girls’ hands. He whispers, “He’s never going to send me a picture of his fucking lunch again.” And then he starts crying.

The girls huddle closer and both start crying too, quietly. You are in actual physical pain. But you watch them sit there, hands clasped so tight that their knuckles are while, handing each other tissues, leaning into each other like they can’t support themselves. You close your eyes and just listen. For hours you listen to your friends crying over you and telling each other stupid stories about you and hiccupping tiny laughs through their sniffles.

You find out then that ghosts can’t cry.

 

 

 

***

Terezi had been on the investigation of the weird murders right up until you got shot. She was then deemed “too emotionally invested in the case” and it was transferred to some other hot shot detective who agreed to send her updates so she could “unofficially” still work on it.

You decided that one night of witnessing nonstop crying was enough for you. You were also curious about what the hell did Vantas do for someone to shoot at him, and Terezi lives for these kinds of things. She is grim and tired, but never once do you see tears and you are thankful for it. She has an entire wall dedicated to the cases with newspaper clippings and autopsy reports and case notes, all of which you get to read. Your death made front page. A bullet apparently tore apart a major artery, and you died by bleeding out. No one is really sure what the heck connects the victims, and Vantas is an outlier. There’s a few other weird details, like homes being trashed (or being destroyed somehow – eek) and possessions like phones and handhelds going missing, computers being wiped, game consoles being taken apart, etc. Terezi has written “LOOK1NG FOR SOM3TH1NG >:?” and circled it on her wall. Under it, she’s written, “ST34L K4RK4T’S COMPUT3R – B4CK 1T UP!”

Currently, Sollux is slouched in a chair, head in one hand and staring at the wall with all the enthusiasm of a senior citizen in a coma. “It would help if we knew what the fuck they were looking for,” he says. “A file, a flash drive, a digital photograph, a memory card, anything.”

Terezi cocks her head to the side and sniffs at the copy of the updated case report she just got emailed to her. “What I want to know is why Karkat is a target. I mean, he doesn’t involve himself in anything!” She huffs.

You peek over her shoulder at the case notes and see that not much has been found really. There’s a little note at the bottom that says, “Target being uncooperative – talk to the fucker, will you?” Terezi takes out her palmhusk and types a message to Vantas: “STOP B31NG 4N 4NT1SOC14L WR1GGL3R TO TH3 POPO 4ND MOV3 1N W1TH MR HUCKL3B3RRY >:[“

The reply is almost instantaneous. “STOP STICKING YOUR SNOUT IN SHIT THAT ISN’T YOUR BUSINESS ANYMORE.”

“Maybe he made a virus that was so bad that it offended the MC,” Sollux suggests.

“Mr. Appleberry, I’m being serious.” She turns toward him and puts her hands on her hips. She says dramatically, “Justice is serious business.”

It occurs to you that you hung out with some pretty wacky characters.

The psionic troll rolls his eyes. “I was being serious. I would be offended if I came across his codes on the internet.”

“He said he hasn’t posted any codes since you blew up his last computer. And also, he would like me to tell you thanks for that again. And I would like to also add my thanks! Because Karkat doesn’t spend nearly enough time at the hospital.”

Sollux slouches more. “I didn’t know he would be standing right next it.” A pause. “And what are you talking about, he doesn’t spend enough time at the hospital.”

“Given,” she says, turning back to the wall. “Maybe we should admit him to the hospital, for safety reasons.”

“Oh yeah, because being a sitting quackbeast in the privacy of his block isn’t dangerous enough. Let’s put him in a public building that has a shit ton of Crew agents fucking around in it and hope for the best.”

“We can limit access to him!”

“We can strap a target to his head and stand him in the middle of Downtown too!”

“Ugh!” Terezi throws her files onto the floor. “Why doesn’t he just accept the fact that we can help him and not be a colossal bulgeknot about it!” She stomps over to a chair next to Sollux and collapses into it, irritably. “Losing Dave was bad enough, but losing him will just send everyone over the edge.”

“Especially G-Z,” Sollux says.

“Especially Gamzee,” Terezi agrees. “I am actually surprised that Gamzee hasn’t just picked him up and tucked him away in a closet yet.”

“Fuck if I know. They’re relationship is so fucked up.”

“It really is.”

Over the course of the week, you’d been hearing a lot about Vantas, and all of it sounds like he’s kind of suicidal and maybe a bit too proud for his own good. You think, “I took a fucking bullet for that prick,” but then you remember the panic on his face when he was leaning over you and trying to staunch the wound with his coat. Maybe you should be all vengeful and shit because he was the target and you were just collateral damage, and he’s still walking around like a tool while you spent the better part of the week feeling helpless and useless.

You are pretty bored, in all honesty. You are also a bit worried for the shit monger, if you’re being honest with yourself.

Well, if Vantas won’t help himself, you suppose you can be a really useless guardian angel and look out for him. At least you won’t have to deal with meltdowns or case notes or anything.

And maybe that’s what your purpose is anyway. It certainly couldn’t hurt. Save the douchebag from getting shot, fulfill purpose in afterlife, pass on, spend rest of eternity in paradise. Sounds like a plan.

You have found your afterlife goal. You are going haunt the fuck out of Karkat Vantas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise i will actually respond to comments this time sorry i just get distracted
> 
> EDIT: wow i just read through this and didn't realize i accidentally posted like three versions of the same beginng to john's reaction. sorry about that, it's fixed now


	4. karkats chronic no good terrible very bad day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double chapter update! So chapter 3 and 4.

Your new purpose in afterlife would be much, _much_ easier if you actually knew where Vantas lived. Or what company he worked for. Or really anything personal about him, actually.

 

You know he drives a cab and his primary circuit is downtown, so that’s where you head, despite the fact that it means a lot of people dodging and the endless excruciating tingle that comes with a dense cluster of people. You’re pretty sure he works the daywalker shift, because not a lot of humans have the nerve to drive a cab in downtown Midnight City at any time ever, so trolls end up fucking with their nocturnal default. Carapaces don’t do well as taxi drivers – the Prospits tend to be too polite and the Derses tend to stab uncooperative customers. Troll low-bloods are the most ideal for the position.

 

The problem with downtown, of course, is that it’s fucking _huge_. A million chauffeurs and cabs from various companies operate at the same time all over and you belatedly realize that finding Vantas is going to be a bitch. You realize that this was a really moronic idea. You also realize that if you have to spend another day watching your friends mourn you, you will probably lose all your shit and flip a ghost table before exorcising yourself. So Karkat Vantas it is.

 

“Hey Vantas,” you yell from your position sitting on top of a bus stop enclosure. No one looks up at you. “Ollie-ollie-oxen-free! Shout out to all my homies in the hood, we’re looking for one nubby horned dead man walking – he’s won a free friendly haunting from yours truly, but only if he calls in next fifteen minutes. Time to spam his various social networking accounts, folks, ‘cause if you’re lucky, you might win six free tickets to next week’s Nickelback concert. The band would like you all to know that there is still available seating in just about every section. They are selling out like fruitcakes in March – if you get my drift.” Well, that got off topic. “Anyway, still paging Doctor Vantas, Doctor Vantas, you have a patient in room three, looks to be something serious, code red and all that shit. Get your ass down to surgery ‘cause we have some lobotomies to perform. Help me Karkat Vantas, you’re my only hope. Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Daddy’s got some yum-yums for you. That sounded terrible, forget I said that. Next thing you know I’ll be making milk and cream jokes. Wink wink. Meow. Who wants a motherfucking cheeseburger?”

 

The sound of metal clashing against metal catches your attention. Halfway down the block, at an intersection, looks like someone got rear-ended by a cab and - Lo and behold, what asshole through yonder Main Street breaks? Who the fuck else did you know who wears turtle necks in the height of summer, honestly. A douche bag by any other name would still be a pedantic shithead.

 

“Well, that was easy,” you say, and hop off the glass enclosure to make your way to the scene of the crime. Vantas and the other driver are already working up a fantastic argument by the time you get there. The accident looks to be Vantas’s fault, but the other driver is going on about physical therepy and spinal ruptures. You leave them to it. There’s a two humans in the back of the cab doing some pretty spectacular eye-rolling, so you faze through the front passenger door to settle yourself shot gun.

 

“This was a mistake,” one of the humans behind you says. “Who even is this guy? God, one minute he’s a chatty grump and the next he clamps up.”

 

The other human snorts. “Low-bloods. Can’t fucking drive, I tell you.”

 

You turn around and glare at them. “Wow, fucking rude you bigoted castist bastard.”

 

The first one huffs, “We’re never going to get there in time at this rate.”

 

“Worst. Taxi. Ever.”

 

“Preach it.”

 

You are so glad you were self-employed in life. What a bunch of dickheads.

 

You do have to admit, though, that it’s really goddamn weird that Vantas is still working despite the fact that he has a) a really shitting job, b) a contract out on his life, and c) a terrifying highblood juggalo soulmate with possibly bullet-proof windows. You sure as hell would have told your boss to fuck of at this point, pakouring your way into the sunset like a total douche with a compensation issue. Then again, what did you know? Maybe this job is actually really fun. Maybe this is really gratifying work. Maybe Vantas makes this job really fun. Maybe Vantas runs a cash cab. Maybe pink unicorns will charge down the street and whisk you away into limbo to become ruler of the midgets.

 

You listen to the slightly muffled argument outside and the annoyed grumbling behind you before the other driver realizes that Vantas has a much wider vocabulary than him (and a really good grasp of the legal system – probably takes notes from Terezi) and he gets back in his car. Vantas gets back in the driver’s seat, muttering to himself about the city being full of idiot nookwiffers who wouldn’t be able to tell a witness from The Felt even if they were presently being murdered via voodoo doll time shenanigans, and about the connections between exhaustion and hallucinations. He buckles his seatbelt and clears his throat, glancing into the rearview mirror.

 

“Sorry about that, that was-“

 

“Were you even paying attention,” the second human demands. “You could have gotten us killed you stupid fuck.”

 

“Whoa,” you say. “Holy shit, it’s rush hour, he was going ten miles an hour tops, the fuck is wrong with _you_?”

 

Vantas doesn’t chime in, and you glance at him. He has both hands on the wheel and is staring straight ahead like his neck will give out on him if he twists around at all. You can see a lot of tension in his jaw.

The second human says, “Hello, Base to idiot in the driver’s seat, I believe I asked you a direct question.”

Taking a deep breath and flexing his fingers on the wheel, Vantas finally says, in a strained voice, “Right. Got fu- got distracted. Won’t happen again.” He sounds like someone is grabbing his vocal cords and squeezing.

 

“Damn right it won’t,” the first humans mutters and opens the door to the cab. “We’ll be complaining about this.” She tosses some fare into the cab as her companion slides out and they both slam the door and hurry to the sidewalk.

 

Welp.

 

With exaggerated care, Vantas leans into the backseat to gather up the fare and stick it in the little box thing. He flips a few switches. He takes another deep breath. He looks like he’s going to either pass out or start screaming or both.

 

You ask, “you okay, bro?”

 

There is a certain look to people who are about to completely fly off the handle – you dealt with it a lot of times as a kid because of the neighborhood you lived in. Vantas is beyond that look. He’s suddenly flown so far past it that he’s spun around and crash landed in Hystericalville, dragging a scar right up to the border of Top Nominee For Next Rehab Patient Town. You are distinctly uncomfortable. When he puts his forehead on the steering wheel and starts producing a humorless laugh that would sound more appropriate in a creepy horror movie torture scene, you seriously consider getting out of the cab and giving him a moment.

 

Instead, he hits his head against the wheel a second time and says, “Okay, yeah. Fine. I’m fine. Of fucking course I’m fine. I’m trying really hard not to throw up.” He shudders out a breath and whispers, “I am so fucking sorry.”

_Oooooo_ kay. This is not awkward anymore. Now you’re just really goddamn creeped out and disturbed. This is the most prominent Do Not Want moment of your entire life. Afterlife. Shit. You are really _really_ regretting your afterlife choices. “Yeah, good,” you say, wondering if you should reach out or something. What the fuck do people even do in this kind of situation? “Good, deep breaths there, Vantas.”

 

It takes a minute or two but Vantas pulls himself together and sits back up with a stony face and a lot of deep breathing. “We are fucking done,” he says. He shifts into drive. “We’re are _done_.”

 

“Yup, so done,” you agree. “There is no one more done than us. If we were any more done, we’d be a goddamn bran muffin in a Perkins bakery display. We’re probably three weeks old, growing mold under those little cup wrapper things. Fuck if I know, let’s just call it done and be done with it.”

 

He does the creepy laugh again while he rubs and eye with a gloved hand under his goggles and – oh no. Oh _fuck_ no. “Oh my god, you aren’t crying are you? No, stop, I cannot deal with crying right now. I am so done with crying. Me and crying are separated after crying threw a hair-dryer at my head, and now we’re living in separate households. We’re filing for divorce, is how done I am with crying. I will never think of crying again, we will find someone new and crying can keep the TV for all I care. I am so done. I am so _done for_.” You can tell he’s trying really hard to hold it together so he isn’t a complete safety hazard on the road, but you went to see him because you were, like, seventy percent sure that you wouldn’t have to deal with this shit. “Fuck crying. We weren’t even friends, you shouldn’t be fucking crying. No emotional meltdowns, kay? I’ve seen enough to go on a yearlong guilt trip to Iceland, and that’s not even going into John’s goddamn piano.”

 

To tell the truth though, you really should have seen this coming. Well, not the terrifying hysterical factor, but the whole survivor’s guilt thing. But he grits his teeth and glares at the road and you make it to a hole-in-the-wall garage without any more incidents. When he pulls in, though, a green-blood with a clipboard does a double-take and then gives him a look that you would totally purposely misinterpret as pitch if you were actually visible in this situation. Let’s fuck with everyone’s head, whee.

 

“What is this,” the green-blood yells when Vantas gets out of the car. “ What is that, right there?”

 

“What does it look like, idiot,” Vantas shoots back, sounding more like himself. Emotional meltdown on the drive over, what are you talking about? No panic attacks here, totally taking life head on like a champ. You faze out of the car as (you assume) Vantas’s supervisor fusses over the damage to the front  bumper with increasingly perturbed growls. “I rear-ended some bulgesucker in a truck. His car barely even dented, he’s not even pressing charges.” He pushes his door shut with his foot. “I made goal today, anyway.”

 

“Made goal,” the supervisor repeats. His name tag says “Alphie”. “Made goal! Yes, that makes everything better. We’ve lost two cars this week, but that’s okay because you _made goal_. Here, just let me put you on our employee of the month board.”

 

Vantas visibly bristles. “I am not fucking responsible for you not taking the detective’s advice and checking all the cabs during shift change, okay? Yeah, I fucked up today. Not like anyone else here hasn’t dented a door or-“

 

“That’s not the issue here,” Alphie says, throwing his hands up in the air. “Do you know what the issue is, Vantas? Can you think of anything that might be counted as a few strikes against you?”

 

“Uh,” you say.

 

“I-“ Vantas tries to say.

 

“The issue is you.” He jabs a finger into Vantas’s chest. “You miss work for ‘emergencies’ more than anyone else I’ve _ever_ worked with, your medical needs are actually fucking ridiculous, we get as many complaints about your attitude as we get customers, you go missing without explanation at stupid times, and I’m pretty sure you’re an undiagnosed schizophrenic.” He snaps his fingers. “Oh, and the Midnight Crew wants you dead. Can’t forget that.”

 

“Uh,” you say again. “Schizophrenic?”

 

Vantas growls. “You don’t know the _first damned thing_ about my medic-“

 

Alphie interrupts, “I’m sorry, kid. I really want to help you out here, but this just isn’t working.”

 

You say, “Oh fuck.”

 

Vantas says, “You’re firing me.”

 

“Yes, I am firing you.”

 

Vantas doesn’t say anything. If you thought things were awkward before, you have just achieved a new level of awkward, god tier levels of uncomfortable permeating the room right now, boy howdy. You could make a cologne out of it and make more that Troll Calvin Kline. You could make TV dinners out of the awkward. Jesus, fuck.

 

The green-blood sighs. “Go home, kid. Get some sleep, take a few days, talk to your moirail, get your assets in order.” He claps a hand on Vantas’s shoulder and shuffles off into an office, leaving Vantas standing there frozen and expressionless.

 

Wow, uh, his supervisor just basically told him to go home and wait for his inevitable demise. That’s… That sure is a thing that happened. You sort of wish you hadn’t been there to witness it.

 

Everything is terrible.

 

Please don’t start laughing again please don’t start laughing again please don’t start laughing again please don’t start laughing again please don’t start-

 

“Ha,” Vantas says. “Haha!” You die a little inside. “Yes, this is so shit-tasticly perfect that I could vomiy my way to the sun and manage to not incinerate myself through lengthy tabloid troll science. Then the sun could become a sentient being and commit suicide, destroying the galaxy and everything in it. Except for me. Because I am just. Just that fucking lucky.”

 

“This is not your day,” you tell him. Because your superhero name is Captain Obvious. Wow, you fucking douche, way to go.

 

He claps his hands together and chimes, all syrupy like unflavored cold medicine, “Thank you! And thank _you_ , universe! I’m really appreciating this twelve and a half sweep long joke that my existence is, I really am. If you could get to the fucking punch line already, I’m sure we’d all dance our way into blissful ecstasy until out eyes fall out and are replaced with grub-eating reptiles.”

 

“Maybe you should go home,” you say.

 

“Maybe I should go home,” he says.

 

“Sounds like a plan.”

 

“Obviously all my plans are good ideas. I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise.”

 

It’s almost like he’s holding a conversation with you. Huh. Maybe you can pretend. Maybe later, when your skin isn’t crawling with stupid amounts of sympathy for the guy you took a shot for.

 

His house – hive? Lawn ring? Hivestem? – is apparently within walking distance of the company base, because he just steps out and starts walking. You follow behind and dodge passerby, whistling quietly to help yourself settle after witnessing what could possibly be the worse day in Karkat Vantas’s life. You heard somewhere a while ago that the dead envy the living. Haha, like _fuck_ you’re envying Vantas right now. The jaunt back in uneventful other than a quick trip down an alleyway so Vantas could apparently pull of his jacket and muffle a scream into it. Then… Then he just walks on like nothing happened. Haha, screaming in jackets in public is totally a normal troll thing, yes siree. You wonder about that comment his boss made about schizophrenia. One would think that would be something that would have turned up in a conversation with his friends? You intend to look into it. (It’s not like you have anything better to do.)

 

You both head out of downtown and to the south end of the city, and you’re wincing because seriously. Seriously. _Why does his life suck so much_ , this is getting ridiculous _._

 

The South end of Midnight City (or Southern Slums, as it is tenderly named) is, if nothing else, nostalgic. And a goddamn dump. Here is where all the lowblood sopor addicts and meth labs congregate into a dense clusterfuck made up of body odor and broken dreams. On every corner is a discreet advertisement in a low-cut shirt and plastic pants they have to be poured into. The buildings are probably some of the oldest in the city, and they are falling apart. The residents are lucky that the foundations were made of cement and stone, but that didn’t stop neglect from taking its eroding toll on the floors and walls and ceilings. Trash collecting drones tended to disappear in the Slums, and the city gave up and only sent them out once a week, with armored guard and the residents are known to gather like it was a parade. Any cars that aren’t gaudier than a spoiled princess’s wardrobe are either pieces of shit or stripped down to their bare bones and left to rot where they are. Bike chains are more of a challenge than anything else, and the things people spend the most money on is, in this order: dead bolts, food, and hair. (The slums holds the best barbers in the city, but they will also steal your wallet given the chance.)

 

Vantas lives in the center of hell, and you are blown away by the amount of bullshit it takes just to walk a block in the place. Que unpleasant flashbacks of your childhood, go go go. Within one block of his building he has been propositioned by no less than a troll and two humans, starts an argument with a passerby, wins an argument with a passerby who turns out to be his neighbor, witnesses four crimes, and has two near death experiences.

 

“You lead an exciting life,” you tell him, as he cautiously steps over the Harley Davidson that had nearly mowed him over. The rider has been flung through a window and is already announcing to the street how exciting and gratifying the experience is. Vantas flicks him off, a gesture the rider returns with glee.

 

“Such excitement filling my end days, I expect to keel over from the adrenaline rush alone any perigee now. Wouldn’t that be the most fan-fucking-tastic demise to my miserable existence,” he mutters, digging the keys to his building out of his pocket. You blink at him. It’s almost like he actually… Nah. Maybe you two just work on similar brain wavelengths for whatever fucked up reason that happens to people.

 

His building looks worse on the outside than the inside. The landlords apparently gave up the exterior as a lost cause and focused on making sure the ceiling didn’t collapse in anyone’s living room. Props to them, but holy fucking shit. “Don’t you have, like, a pet clown that’s a member of the one percent? Why are you living in Satan’s asshole?”

 

If he responds, you don’t catch it. He makes his way up the stairs and you follow him up to the seventh floor. He stops in front of 705 and fiddles with his keys again while you patiently wait for him to open the door.

 

“Oh good,” Vantas says when he walks in, and you slip in before he can shut the door. “You’re back. Thanks for the note, by the way. I really love it when you tell me what you’re doing and when you’ll be back as opposed to, I don’t know, leaving it a mystery that I could never hope to solve, letting me fester in my own anxiety.”

 

His apartment is a decent sized one-bedroom, one-bath. The furniture is mismatched and worn, but not entirely shitty. Sitting on the couch is a troll with long wavy hair and ram horns. Her symbol marks her as a rust-blood, her torn and singed skirt marks her as a really fucking poor rust-blood, and her height and face mark her as a fucking kid-wriggler-grub. This marks Vantas as either a kidnapper or a pimp. This girl should not even have left home planet yet, what the fuck.

 

She looks up at Vantas without expression. “I didn’t leave a note,” she says. Her eyes are completely white. You’ve never seen that before. Was that, like, troll albino or something?

 

“Yeah, I noticed. I’m glad you caught on to that,” your escort says before collapsing on the couch next to her and putting his head in his hands. The girl just stares at him with an unnerving lack of blinking. You feel like she’s going to burst out laughing at any moment but she just… doesn’t.

 

Vantas says, “Kill me.”

 

The girl says, “No.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“No.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“No.”

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“No.”

 

You snort. “Alright kids, don’t make me turn this car around.”

 

She turns her head in your direction and – and holy fucking _shitballs_ it’s like she’s actually staring at you. What the crap what the crap. But then the moment passes and she focuses back on Vantas.

 

“If I remember correctly,” the troll girl states, “this is the point in the conversation where I ask how your day has gone, despite whether or not I actually care about the answer.”

 

Uh. What? Was that sarcasm?

 

Vantas jumps you and glares at her. “You want to know about my day? Is this some kind of shitty lead up where you tell me some vague riddle to make me feel better when it actually does the opposite? Okay, yes. Here’s my day! I got into a car crash, I had to drive around three dickweasel boss-types – _three_ – I had a very public meltdown, certain parts of my body may or may not need medical attention again, and, are you ready for this, I got fucking fired!”

 

“Congratulations,” she says, sounding completely serious. Her voice is so _monotone_ , what is _wrong_ with this troll?

 

“ _That is not the appropriate response_ , _smart one_ ,” he hisses back.

 

“Oh,” she says, like she _honestly didn’t know_.

 

“And! This is the best part, the part that really makes my day just so full of contentment and pleasure that I might as well be lathered in glitter paint and thrown into a brothel. The greasy icing on the maggot-infested cake of my day has been complete because,” he takes a deep breath, “ _he_ showed up.” And he points at you – in your direction.

 

You look behind you, trying to figure out who he’s pointing at. There’s no one behind you. You look back and the girl is fucking…. staring at you again. Vantas is still pointing in your direction. You shift over three steps and _the girl’s eyes follow you_ oh god oh god what

 

With a dull blink, she says, “Ah, yes. I imagine you are upset about this.”

 

“You _think_?” Vantas throws his hands into the air and abruptly bursts into tears. Whoa, things just went god tier awkward again, everybody grab a buddy ‘cause this one’s a doozy. “Fuck me sideways running, this can’t be happening.” He buries his head in his hands again. “I am so, so fucking sorry. This never should have happened. I just – I.” Then he makes a hasty retreat to the bedroom and closes the door. 

 

Uh.

 

Okay.

 

So Vantas seems to be doing pretty good since you died. (That is sarcasm, you regret everything.)

 

You glance back at the troll girl, who is still staring at you – or in your direction. “Uh,” you say, despite the fact that you’re a fucking ghost and no one can hear you. “Sup.”

 

She cocks her head to the side and says, “Hello again, Dave Strider.”

 

What

 

the

 

_actual_

**_fuck._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when I said it gets funnier I didn't mean this chapter  
> how do i a03


	5. if you can see the disembodied floating torso i got some bad news for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me so many issues. But, here we are. The fun begins next chapter.

She watches you jump around the living room like a jackalope or the world’s worst ninja furry for a minute or two, trying to dodge her glance until she says, “Please have a seat,” and gestures to the rest of the furniture.

“You can see me,” you say, in case she hadn’t noticed.

She nods, “Yes.”

You jump out from behind the couch to point and her and say, like a classic case of “No Child Left Behind,” “And you can hear me.”

“Yes.”

“And you can motherfucking see me!”

One of her eyes twitches. “Yes,” she says, slowly. “Please sit down.”

“Holy griping fuckballs, someone can fucking see me and hear me and I think Vantas could see me, holy shit, what is even going on? Can Vantas actually see me?”

“He has plausible deniability,” the girl says.

You run your hands through your hair and tell the room at large, “What the fuck.”

“If you sit down,” the troll girl says, her hollow voice getting an edge to it, “I’ll explain.”

You are on a roll by this point. “This is the biggest development in this retarded story that is my afterlife since I died, do you even realize how fucking weird this is? I just spent a week watching everyone lose their shit and fall screaming from the handle over my stupid ass and here are people who I can fucking _talk_ to and one is albino prepubescent troll jailbait,” (“what,” she says flatly), “shit, it’s like finding civilization after living in the goddamn rainforest for months on end, we got bites from tiki flies to take care of, I’m wasting away from infection, I had to eat bugs for like a week straight, got koalas clinging to me like little vices. Shit, koalas don’t live in the rain forest, don’t hey, they living in, like, Australia or something, holy fuck, I’m living in the bush with all the funnel web spiders and kangaroos and-“

Suddenly you have a face full of mildly irritated prepubescent troll. “Dave Strider,” she grinds out, eye-to-eye with you. How did she get over here so fast? “Sit _down_.”

You back into the closest chair and sit down. She is floating a good two feet off the ground and just hovers back to her previous place on the couch, taking her previous position with her knees together and back straight. She says, “Hello.”

“Uh,” you reply intelligently. “Hi.”

“You are dead,” she says, proving that she had, in fact, noticed.

“Yeah, I got that already.”

“You’re a ghost now.”

 _Right_. “Great,” you say. “I got that too.”

“Okay,” she says, and then falls quiet. You both sit there in silence while you wait for her to continue. She doesn’t appear to be interested in continuing.

“...Not to be a demanding shithead or anything,” you say, “but weren’t you going to explain something to me?”

She blinks at you. “I just did.”

“Oh.” That was the most unhelpful explanation you have ever received. You are still freaking out a little. “Are you ser- That’s it? That’s all the explanation I get? Isn’t there, like, some secret unwritten set of ghost guidelines I’m supposed to follow, Afterlife for Dummies, Intro to Passing On, anything?”

“I suppose.”

It’s like prying answers out of a seedy car salesman. You grit your teeth. “You’re not going to tell me who you are and, oh, why _you and Vantas can fucking see me and hear me_?”

“Sure,” she says, voice still monotone. “I’m dead and Karkat has touched death. That’s why we can both interact with you.”

Vantas has _what_? “Are... Are you telling me that Vantas is a necophiliac?”

She asks, “What’s that?”

Uh. “How old are you? Or. Were you? When you, eh…”

“I’m six.”

Jesus Christ, thirteen year old goddamn troll.

You swallow. You have never been very good with kids, not even when you were a kid. “Okay, a necrophiliac is someone who… likes dead people. A lot. A creepy amount. With their dick.” She’s giving you a blank stare. You throw your hands up, giving up on being subtle. “Someone who has sex with dead people.”

She frowns. “That wouldn’t be physically possible.”

You facepalm. “With corpses, not ghosts.”

“Okay. It still wouldn’t be physically possible.”

“How would that not be physically possible?” You are getting sort of frustrated and maybe a little hysterical. “It’s plug A goes into slot B, not exactly advanced engineering here.”

“You’re very rude,” she tells you.

 _What the fuuuuuuuck_ , you think. Whatever, if you have to rescue dead jailbait from the clutches of Karkat Vantas, you will do it nobly and with dignity. But right now everything is kind of not making any sense. You take a moment to organize the information you have gathered. Item: you are a ghost. Item: no one can see, hear, or touch you. Also, you don’t have any cool ghost powers. Item: Vantas can see and hear you. Item: Vantas has a little ghost girl living in his apartment. Item: the ghost girl is probably Troll Ben Stein’s daughter. Item: Vantas may or may not be a pedophilic necrophiliac (two new extra points to add to your exponentially growing list of “What the fuck is wrong with Karkat Vantas, let me count the ways”). Conclusion: afterlife officially makes no sense whatsofuckingever. Good, glad that’s cleared up.

You inquire, “So, are you Karkat’s unfortunate victim of troll trafficking or what? Should I start running while he’s not paying attention?”

“No,” she says.

“So Karkat isn’t a necrophiliac.”

“Not that I know of.”

“Or a pedophile.”

“If that means being attracted to wrigglers and children, the answer is solidly no.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Her eyebrows furrow a bit. “Yes.”

 “Kay,” you say.

“Okay,” she says back.

She looks familiar, you think. You know you’ve seen her somewhere before, but something is off about her. For some reason a photograph comes to mind. “Hey would you happen to b-“

Vantas’ door swings open. He looks like he’s recovered from whatever emotional outburst he was suffering from before and has now returned to his usual perturbed self. “I am going to murder the entire universe,” he announces. “Starting with Feferi.”

“Yup, that’ll solve all your problems,” you say. “Killing everyone. Always the right answer.”

“Strider, shut your noise tube before you make everyone in a twenty foot radius collapse into a coma with the persistence of your idiocy alone. And by the way, I could hear you through the door and the fact that you even suspected I get my kicks from dead children is both horrifying and disgusting, and I am horrified and disgusted by you, along with your imagination, in general.”

Confirmation that Vantas can at least hear you; check!

The troll girl turns and looks at him. “Why Feferi?”

“I’m glad you asked! It turns out, in a misguided effort to prevent the Midnight Crew from murdering me outright in public, she’s registered me as her auspistice.”

You whistle. “Hey, congrats dude, you got your friend-zone quadrants all filled up now. Or is that the threesome quad? I can never remember.”

“It’s both,” Little Miss Sunshine says.

Vantas bares his teeth at the both of you. “I take it back, first I’m going to figure out how to get rid of you both and _then_ I’m going to murder the Heiress.”

You raise both of your eyebrows. “Isn’t that technically oscillation?”

“Vacillation,” Madam Macabre corrects you.

“I will murder her _platonically_.”

“Harsh, bro.”

He moves around the couch and all but collapses on the opposite end as the troll. “On a related note, the police have it under reliable sources that Droog and Deuce, the two members who seem to be in charge of my demise, appear to have gone on an extended business trip to Who-The-Fuck-Knows-Where.” He holds up his phone and wiggles it for emphasis. “Today is apparently ‘unwarranted surprises’ day for me. I’m so happy I could take a shit.”

The girl suggests, “The ablution block is open.”

“Aradia, could you _not_? I am not in the mood for your fuckery today.”

“It would be much easier to clean up.”

“ _Stop_.”

“You _are_ Aradia,” you say, accusingly.

“Yes,” she says.

“Sollux’s moirail Aradia? The one that died before he left planet?”

“Oh my taint chafing god,” Karkat says.

Aradia just looks at you with her completely white eyes, which you are starting to think have nothing to do with pigmentation. “I guess.”

“You guess,” you repeat.

“Weren’t you concerned with Karkat’s talent to see and hear you,” she asks. Guess she didn’t want to talk about her ex moirail or subsequently, her death. Okay, you can respect that.

“Yeah, actually, what’s up with-“

“Mortal injury, almost died, didn’t, end of fucking story,” Mr. Grumpy Grump McDouchepants says shortly typing away angrily at his phone.

“So touching death is a fancy vague way of saying ‘oh shit I almost died.’ Gotcha.” You give him a pistol and a wink, even if he can’t see the wink. “How’d you almost die?”

“Have you been paying attention at all? Everyone fucking whispers about it behind my back, how the hell could you-“ He facepalms. “Never mind. The same accident that killed her.” He gestures to Aradia, then goes back to his phone. “She died, I didn’t, any and all clowns in a fifty mile vicinity looked to the sky whispered ‘motherfucking miracles’ before inadvertently falling down a flight of stairs after being startled by the sound of their own goddamn voice.”

“Cool,” you nod. “How many clowns was that; eighteen, twenty-six?”

“Two.”

“How do you know they weren’t startled by each other’s voice?”

“Stop,” Aradia says blandly. “You’re both immature assholes.”

You can’t really argue with that. 

After he’s done sending whatever message he was typing out, Vantas tosses his phone on the cushion next to him. “I suppose we should start this miserable endeavor,” he sighs, rubbing his face.

“Are you guys going to, like, help me clear up whatever business kept me here or something? Are we going to bust any embezzlement heists?”

“I swear to god,” Vantas says to Aradia, “Every single damn one of them has to bring up that movie. Every. Single. One.”

“Are you secretly Whoopi Goldberg,” you continue, just to fuck with him.

“No, shut up.”

“Whoopkat Vanberg.”

“Yes,” he says, “We are going to help you sort your shit out. No, it has nothing to do with embezzlement. No, I’m not a mediator or psychic. And yes, if you start singing that Henry VIII song I will actually lose every shit that I have ever and will ever own and I will pour it on you until you ghost drown in literal shit.” He stands up. “But I’m going to need coffee so I can be adequately anxious and shaking for this clusterfuck. And, wonder of wonders, the coffee will actually help me to achieve ultimate levels of shit to push you into.”

To the kitchen it is. Aradia floats after him slowly and you just sort of walk like a normal person, wondering how the hell she floats so easily. You guess that she’s a psychic. Did anyone ever mention her being a psychic? You don’t really remember, so you assume because your head is reeling a bit. You and Aradia sit at the kitchen table while Vantas fumbles around the cupboards, and glares at his coffee machine. He doesn’t sit down or talk to you until he has held the steaming mug in his hands for a total of thirty seconds. You are a little envious. Your hands are cold.

He takes a seat across from you.

“So gentlemen,” you say, leaning forward and putting your fingertips together in a sinister way. “How are we going to kill Superman?”

“We usually start with any message you failed to put together before your… situation,” Vantas tells you over the cup of coffee, completely disregarding your pompt. “Like, if you wanted Egbert to know that you forgive him for, oh,” he waves his hand vaguely, “laughing at you every time you wanted a legitimately serious conversation, then we can figure out some way or another to get that across to him, without making us look like we’re possessed with forces beyond the mortal plane. Or malicious fuckbites who don’t know when to let sleeping barkbeasts lie.”

You cock your head to the side. “How did you know I have deep set trauma over John’s and my bromance?”

“It was a hypothetical example, bulgemunch.”

“Holy shit bro, are you sure you aren’t psychic, because you could not be more on the mark.”

He flicks you the finger absently and fails at stifling a yawn. His tongue curls like a cat’s; you find yourself struggling not to react in some way. It’s just a mindless reaction and it should not be as enchanting as it is. (There are _so many_ feline jokes you could make about him right now.) It’s also proof that despite his ability to sleep, he doesn’t get much, which is probably the most predictable plot twist you’ve encountered in the afterlife so far.

He takes another gulp of coffee and sets the mug on the table. “So,” he drawls, “is there anything you would like to say to anyone, and if so, what the fuck is it?”

It’s a good question. Your first instinct says your friends – particularly John, since he essentially shut down. But Rose and Jade seem to have it handled. “I have a question for you, since I’m obviously not the first to pop your spiritual help service cherry – exhibit A.” You jerk your thumb towards Aradia. “You’ve probably seen people reacting to death way more than I have,” god, that sounded so depressing, “so in your extensive and expert experience, what’s the better option for mourners; a message with closure or cold turkey?”

His brows furrows and his nose scrunches up a bit. You identify it as his confused and offended face. “What the fuck do gobblebeasts have to do with anything?”

“Wow, are you retarded?”

“Holy writhing shitmongles, look at that! It’s time for you to fuck off. Time sure does fly when we’re prying answers out of each other like the culturally insensitive nookwhiffers we obviously are. How about you assume I don’t smother myself in human idioms and fetishize knowledge for every proverb that has the audacity to ooze itself into existence, and I’ll assume that you still want my help.”

You snort. “You are a beautiful and eloquent ray of morning sunshine, Vantas. That is my message to you.”

He rolls his eyes with his whole head, so if you had any problems seeing the general outline of his eyes behind his tacky wrap-around shades, you would still know he was doing it. “Yes, thank you, excuse me while I go shove that up my nook and climax with eternal gratitude that you find me to have a 'cheeful disposition.’ Now what the fuck were you asking?”

You look at Aradia with the intention to roll your eyes dramatically at her with the air of, “can you believe this guy?” but she has planted her face on the table and all you see is ram horns and a lot of tangled hair. You turn back to Vantas. “Cold turkey means just gone, poof, abrupt and suddenly giving up something without easing out of it first. Like jumping out of an airplane without a chute and hitting the ground five minutes later. Splat.” You clap your hands together to demonstrate. “What I’m saying is would it be better to give my bros some message to make them feel better, or just let them handle it themselves.”

“Oh,” he sighs. “I can’t answer that. It depends on the person. If you suspect any of your friends are neurotic, I would let them fester in their own juices until they can pull themselves out. Sometimes people need things to be final and cut off completely before they can start the healing process.” Aradia lets out a muffled groan and Vantas pats her on the head, giving her a surprisingly sympathetic look (did he actually touch her???). He goes back to no-nonsense-douche-librarian-from-hell when he turns back to you. “On the other hand, sometimes people need answers to move on. The default is to leave them the fuck alone because that’s what happens most of the time anyway, unless you have something really important you wanted to tell them. And by important I mean life or death situation, or something that will prevent them from losing everything they’ve gained in life.”

You don’t really have anything dire to say to your friends other than all the sappy, sentimental stuff and you’re pretty sure your friends already assume that you loved them dearly, will miss them, are sorry and blah blah blah. You shrug. “I think they got it covered. I’m a little worried about John, but Rose and Jade were coddling him back to a functional state last I checked.”

A blankly concerned look. “What wrong with Egbert?” Then he suddenly straightens like you just slapped him on the face. “Wait, no, fuck, that’s none of my business. Forget it.”

The fact that he was worried enough about John enough to ask and then gave you an awkward-free exit to the conversation somehow convinces you that you should probably tell him. Vantas is many things, but cruel is not one of them, as far as you can tell. “John went paralyzed pseudo-zombie after the funeral. Like no meltdowns or sobbing fits or anything. He just sat there and stared at walls.”

“Oh fuck,” Vantas hisses.

“Yeah, but Jade and Rose got him to start talking again and now they’re all – “ this is surprisingly hard to talk about with any sort of emotional distance; your voice cracks, “they’re all, you know, mourning… and shit.” Another vocal crack. You swallow thickly.

Thankfully, he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Is there a suicide risk?”

You didn’t even think of that. “I… don’t… think so?”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, he doesn’t seem the type, but you never know. We can go check up on him if you want to. Or,” he gets this weird look on his face, “you two can. I don’t think he wants to see _my_ ugly face again.”

“Here we go,” Aradia mutters. Her voice sounds like a growl.

You look at him incredulously. “What? Dude, what the fuck, why wouldn’t he want to – it’s not like it was even your fault. Even _I_ know that.”

“Funny thing about emotion and psychology,” he growls, “it doesn’t exactly follow logic all the time. If he needs to fucking displace his anger and pain on something, I’m a really goddamn convenient target, and I have the personality to make it easy for him. Congratu-fucking-lations, this has been life of the victim’s loved ones post-death, one-oh-one. You failed the course. Looks like you’re stuck here for another semester.”

“Bro, you tried to save me. You, like, even ruined your coat to make a tourniquet.”

“Yes,” Aradia grumbles, “how could anyone forget about the coat.” More growling. Uh.

“Ooh,” Vantas chimes, “you’re right. I may be indirectly responsible for a friend’s death but the fact I ruined a shitty coat to try to staunch the bleeding relieves me from any and all displaced guilt, anger, and emotional anguish. I’m glad you pointed that out, I was starting to think no one noticed. That poor jacket! It was actually a gift from lusus and ruining it was a huge sacrifice on my part. We even held a funeral for it.”

You huff, “Aight, let me explain something to you, dickface. You don’t know Egbert like I do ‘cause - Egbert and me? yeah - we’re basically the best of bros ever, secret handshakes and overly masculine fronting included. John ain’t gonna be the irrational asshole who goes and turns into a bitter old husk because his heterosexual soul mate just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, and he sure as hell ain’t gonna go and blame you for all the bullshit that went down as long as you don’t start dissing me in front of him or whatever. So you can fuck right off if you want to go and categorize him with the stupid miserable douche that nobody likes in the motherfucking paranormal blockbuster that this is turning into. You know, that guy who always dies off pretty quickly because he’s such an unsympathetic asshole? _You_ already fit that role just fine.”

This is how you get thrown across the room by the ghost of a thirteen year old girl and slammed against a wall at a speed that would have broken a few bones had you had any.

You black out for a few seconds. When you wake up, Aradia is in your face screaming “TAKE IT BACK TAKE IT BACK YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING” and your mind is reeling dizzily, and you are very, very confused and very, very panicky.

Aradia’s face is jerked back and you see that Vantas has her by the back of her shirt and is dragging her across the kitchen while she is screaming at you; snapping teeth, clawing at the air, hair actually raised like she’s swimming in a pool of her own power. Her face has completely changed from Shirley Temple to something you might encounter in Silent Hill. The hair on the back of your neck is raised and it has nothing to do with her psychic ability and everything to do with the sheer petrified terror you’re feeling because the only thing keeping this girl from tearing off your face is Vantas and you just dissed him and he didn’t like you much in the first place.

He practically throws her back in her chair and holds her there with one hand. He’s yelling. “Calm you ectoplasmic fat sacs and look at me you autistic spazmonkey, I mean it. _Look at me_.” He has a hand on her chin and forces her to turn her head from you and stare at him. “Now humor me for a moment while you take some pointless deep breaths.” She inhales audibly. She sounds like a velociraptor trying to smell out its prey. “Okay, good. Keep doing that – no, look at me. I am the only thing worth gaping at in this entire hideous nutrition block.” She does deep breathing while Vantas mutters irrelevant directions and her hair start to fall and her face slowly melts back to its previous apathetic default. You do not move, lest you remind her that you are still in the room and still a pretty vulnerable target. After a couple of fearful minutes, she slouches and sighs deeply, like the world is exasperating her beyond belief. (You push the shock that Vantas can somehow interact with you back for another time.)

“Feel better?”

“Fine,” she says.

“Are you still upset?”

“No.”

After a few moments of calm, he lets go of her and comes back over to you to crouch down beside you. He asks, “How are you feeling, idiot?”

He doesn’t even sound mad, just tired. “Uh,” you begin. “Is… is that normal?”

“Is what normal?”

Wow, did he not notice that the talking porcelain doll just went demon-possessed ventriloquist puppet on your ass? You hiss, “The screamy clawing werewolf impression your familiar just did.”

“Oh.” He glances back to Aradia, who’s staring at you intently. He turns back to you, unfazed. “Yeah, that happens sometimes. My suggestion is not to be on the receiving end.” He stands back up and offers a hand. “She’s pretty much the juggernaut of ghosts.”

You wave his hand away and jump up (you are a strong independent woman and don’t need no man to-) and almost immediately fall back down again as a new wave of dizziness hits you. Vantas moves to catch you, but you hit the wall and use that for support instead.

“Okay,” you ask, very calmly, “is _that_ normal?”

He says, “yes,” very quietly, suddenly looking even more tired. Then he turns to go sit back at the table, leaving you to figure out shit on your own. The dizziness passes and you’re able to shuffle your way back to a chair, albeit feeling a little worn out. How does that even work?

Aradia stares at you the whole time. You are more than a little creeped out.

“So!” Vantas says mock cheerfully. “I think some actual introductions are in order. My name is Karkat Vantas. You can call me Karkat or Vantas. If you start making puns with my name I can make your afterlife a grueling, miserable, tedious practice in all the small inconveniences that pile up until you are soaking in an ablution of your own bile, begging me to pull you out of your own inadequate ego shaped conveniently like a bone bulge and deflated like a particularly abysmal party balloon. And I will laugh.”

“Sure thing, Karcrabby.”

He glares at you in such a way that you’re pretty sure he’s trying to set you on fire. Then he moves on to Aradia, who’s _still fucking staring at you_. “This is Aradia Megido. You may recognize her from all the goddamn pictures Captor still has of her and pulls out every time someone so much as implies a ‘die in a fire’ joke. In case it wasn’t clear enough to you before, don’t fuck with her. I will not save you. Also, don’t hit on her because not only will I not save you, but I’ll run down to the butcher to buy some cluckbeast blood to prepare for your inevitable exorcism.” Ah. _There's_ the reason behing Aradia's solid answer on the pedophile thing.

You scrunch up your nose in disgust. “Dude, she’s, like, thirteen. She can transform into a demon spawn at will and toss me around like football in an international soccer game.” You pause. “And she’s thirteen.” You don’t think you could ever be attracted to someone who looked perpetually like a middle-schooler. Shota is definitely not your thing.

“Good answer,” he says and gestures towards you.

“Sup,” you say. “Name’s Dave Strider and this is Jackass.” Vantas does not look amused. Aradia also does not look amused, but you don’t think she’s actually capable of that anyway. “I died and got tired of watching everyone sob dramatic anime tears over my rotting corpse. Luckily, I heard about this guy with a contract out on his life who might need an extra hand. But I got stuck with you instead.”

“Ha. Are you a masochist or are you just naturally this charming,” Vantas asks.

You say, “I’m dead, I just spent a week and a half watching everyone have emotional breakdowns and couldn’t do a thing about it, I’m dead, no one can hear me or see me or even fucking _feel_ me, I was _shot_ in the back _three times_ for giving some dick back his _hat_ , and the only people I can interact with are a caustic hyper conservative stubborn invalid from the ghetto and his friendly spiritual companion, Dr. Jekyll.” And in case it wasn’t clear before, “Also, I’m _dead_. I think I’m a little justified to be snarky at this point.”

He sneers at you. “Snarky, yes. A jealous shameful paranormal abomination, not so much.”

“I am _not_ jealous.”

“Oh, you’re not wishing that the roles were reversed at this point? You aren’t bitter at all that you were killed in place of some asshole you don’t even like for stupid reasons? The fact that you have fallen into a personal nightmare of truly, honestly being alone as opposed to living hell day by endless fucking day doesn’t piss you off in the slightest? Have you not registered the fact that you are dead, you are gone, and nothing will ever bring you back to grinding shriek of living a mundane life that the rest of us have to suffer through until fate finally decides its had its fun and allow us to just fucking rest?”

Holy fucking _shit_ , what is _with_ this guy? “Excuse me, did I hear you calling _me_ jealous? If anything, Vantas, I’m starting to think that the only thing here you consider a shameful paranormal abomination is _you_."

In your defense, you did not expect to be right on the money. You kind of expected him to sputter at you and start screaming obscene curses your way, not snap his mouth shut and stiffen and go pale and for his knuckles to go as white as the mug he’s holding.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose, slowly flexing his fingers off the mug and rests his hands flat on the table. His fingers keep twitching, like he wants to dig his nails into the wood. Three more deep breaths that don’t seem to be working as well for him as they did for Aradia.

With his eyes still closed he breathes, “Why did come find me?”

“I was hanging with some friends of yours who were worried and I thought, hey, since I already died for IRL Malfoy, might as well keep him alive for these suckers, they seem to want to keep him around.”

Another deep breath and a hiss. “You can’t even fucking do anything.”

You raise your eyebrows over your glasses. “Maybe not for anyone else, but I guess I’m lucky enough for the guy I took a bullet for to be able to commune with the dead.” You lean forward and put your elbows on the table. “I’m not going to die just for a kamikaze headcase to go and walk out into the mine field blindfolded because of survivor’s guilt. You are going to _live_ , Karkat Vantas, and you are going to be fucking grateful that I came back to keep your ass firmly in this plane of existence. And Bella Swan over here is going to help me.” You turn to Aradia, “Am I right?”

She still has that intense stare going on but the temperature of it has changed from icy chill to stubborn heat. “Even though you’ll be essentially useless in any sort of confrontation, melee or otherwise, I agree that keeping Karkat alive is in both of our best interests.” Nice backhand. She turns to Vantas. “You are a good friend and a complete fucking moron, so I will do my best to intercept any attacks on you. And I will throw you over a building if I have to.”

He takes one more breath that doubles as a sigh before opening his eyes and letting his body go limp. “You both are going to regret this.”

You say, “Dude, we’re fucking ghosts, what the hell do we have to lose?”

“Actually,” Aradia says ( _aw shit_ ), “that is another issue we must tell you about.”

You stare at her. “What issue.”

Karkat stands up abruptly. “And that’s my cue to turn in for the day. Good fucking riddance.”

“That’s really cowardly,” Aradia tells him.

“I hate this part, okay? Give me a break.” And he closes the door to his room.

“Eh,” you say slowly, side-eying Aradia really fucking hard, “what?”

She asks, “Have you blacked out yet?”

You blink at her. “Uh, once. When you, eh, threw me against the wall.”

“Okay,” she says. “Now begins the journey of your inevitable approaching doom.” A pause. “Second doom.” Another pause. “I guess.”

Very slowly, very warily, you breathe, “What doom?”

She cocks her head and looks at you like you just asked her a dumb question she expected you knew. She says, “Your second death, of course.”

“Don’t I, you know, pass on?”

“No.”

“Oh,” you say. “…Fuck.”


End file.
